Whether you’re a brand new email marketer or an experienced pro, it is crucial to verify email delivery to every single one of your recipients. If you don’t do this, you can be wasting your time messaging email addresses that are not valid and even damaging your sender’s reputation. The more invalid emails you have, the less likely Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are to deliver your emails and the lower your deliverability rates.

In short, if you want your email marketing to succeed, verifying your lists is like an in-person checkup. It reduces the risk of your message landing in the ether, it makes sure you’re not shooting in the dark, and helps you hit the right inbox, every time.

Ensuring Delivery: Verify Email Delivery

The first step is to run a DNS lookup on the domain name (the part after the ‘@’) of the email address in question. This ensures that the domain is registered and that it’s set up to receive messages. The second is to run an SMTP verification. This checks that the SMTP server can accept incoming messages, meaning that it’s working and active. Some verification services also offer a catch-all check, which checks all addresses that end with the domain to make sure they are active.

While these are both vital, they cannot stop spam traps from stealing your email address and they cannot prevent people from marking you as spam or not opening your emails. That’s why a good double opt-in is key and why you should only use email verification services from companies that are trusted and respected in the industry.